Chasam City

[Wabbit]

**WARNING: May contain very SMALL spoilers**





Well... I finally gave up. Yup, I did. I just could not finish Alastair Reynold's Chasam City. I was about 100 pages from the end and finally... I just had to give up because this is moving onto the forth month of crawling though the damn book.

Now, I REALLY loved Revelation Space! I was looking forward to reading Chasam City, big disappointment! I can hardly believe it's by the same author! The book is just slow and dull. The characters are 2 dimensional. The plot is SO obvious as to what is going to happen. Every character goes to GREAT lengths to telegraph EVERYTHING. Example: A character says something like, "will do us good." And then says when questioned on the "us" comment he replies, "Oh, I mean WE." YES IT REALLY DOES GO LIKE THAT. I mean, come on? How simple can you get? Another example: A page is spent on detailing how a character left out a gun and money and easy access to a to a car. Hmmm I wonder if they did that on purpose? MY GOD!!!!!

I was very disappointed. I was looking forward to reading the other books by hime that follow on from Revalation Space, but now I am now so sure I want to by them.

OK... Has anybody else read the book? What did YOU think of it? I know this book got very good reviews. Phil, I know you like Alastair Reynolds, have you read it? Come on, convince me to buy the other books!

Regards
SillyWabbit

 

[Litany]

Well I enjoyed Chasm City. But I read it a while ago now, so I honestly can't remember anything about telegrams being particularly annoying. Yes, the plot was obvious, and it was obvious who Tanner would turn out to be. But he was being set up, I think it was supposed to be obvious. It's not an Agatha Christie novel.

Anyhoo, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap return to the Inhibitor story, so you'd probably enjoy those a lot more. Chasm City isn't really a necessary read, it's only set in the same universe. While certain characters do pop up in the book, it's not essential to the plot of the Revelation Space story.

The short stories are a bit quirky. Diamond Dogs, and Turquoise Days. I thought Turquoise Days was a bit pants to be honest. But Diamond Dogs was a thoroughly enjoyable rip-off of the cube. And I think you are supposed to just accept that it's a rip-off. It's so very blatant, but still good.

 

[Oponn]

Haven't read it but I was planning on picking it at some time because I enjoyed Revelation Space and Redemption Ark so much. Pity you were disappointed.

 

[Prunk]

Chasm City is certainly a very different type of book to Revelation Space, but I personally found it to be just as entertaining. Less in the classic space opera vein with a much more claustrophobic feel. However, I would agree with Litany - if you enjoyed Revelation Space then you should certainly enjoy Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap.